Sunday’s PGA Tour supergroup could have been the norm, but players denied the opportunity to do it.
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Sunday at the RBC Canadian Open was, by Every measure, a stunning success. But perhaps it’s more accurate to call it what it was really: a lucky break.
After a week of LIV Golf controversy, the final round in Toronto was the distraction of the PGA Tour desperately needed. There was a little bit of everything – a tightly contested tournament, a heavily invested crowd, a star-studded leaderboard.
The final group, the one that would finally decide the tournament, was at the center of everyone’s attention, and for good reason. It features three of the Tour’s biggest homegrown stars – Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and Tony Finau – each of which entered Sunday in the thick of contention. It was the PGA Tour great.
“It feels really good with all the things that were going on in the golf world this week,” McIlroy said. “For the Canadian Open, a national championship, to have a week like it’s had, three of the best players in the world going down the stretch, trying to win in front of those crowds and that atmosphere.”
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For CBS, the group was a gift from the ratings gods. In Thomas, McIlroy and Finau, the network had something it almost never does: a superstar trio actively trading blows coming down the stretch. The PGA Tour pros have shown little interest in fixing.
Though the PGA Tour regularly creates superstar-laden groups for its early-week rounds, and longstanding Tour tradition holds that weekend rounds are decided by merit. Those with the worst scores play first, while those with the best scores play last. Tiebreakers, however, are decidedly different. When two players are tied on the leaderboard, the tied player who finished their round first tees off last, and vice versa.
For TV networks, FILO has long been a thorn in the side – the arbitration rule with the very real effect of spoiling superstar weekend pairings and hurting ratings. Last year, those frustrations finally boiled over. In the first year of multi-billion-dollar, decade-long rights deals, Tour leadership approached its constituents about abolishing FILO once and for all as the tee time tiebreaker.
The networks proposed a new weekend tiebreakers would be decided in a different way. Rather than relying on FILO’s randomness to create pairings, the networks allowed to decide weekend tiebreakers by FedEx Cup ranking points.
By sports television standards, the idea was surprisingly tame. Networks employ all programming departments to “rig” schedules to reach most eyeballs. Just a few years ago, the NFL has a more flexible system of ratings-juicing – the “flex schedule” – which allows the league to unilaterally move games into primetime slots. CBS and NBC’s idea, by comparison, sought only to change the metric that broke the tie.
In February, 2021, the Tour brought the idea to the Player Advisory Committee, a 16-player council that voted on proposed changes on behalf of the membership. If the PAC approves the idea, the Tour Policy Board (a combination of players who have served on the PAC and business leaders) would also vote to enact the rule. A few weeks after the meeting, which took place during the Genesis Invitational, and a summary of the PAC decision was shared to all Tour members.
“Over the years, our network partners have approached the Tour requesting an improvement to the way we have players playing at a certain score for rounds three and four,” the memo read. “The PAC reviewed this proposal and did not support changing the FedEx Cup-based system. The policy of ‘first in, last out’ will remain in place for groupings after the cut is made. ”
It is not entirely clear what is responsible for Tour players’ apprehension towards a new system; It’s obvious, though, that the Tour’s broadcast partners are not the only ones who stand to lose from the same old system.
“It gives you a lot of confidence to know that, just to see where your game stacks up against the best,” McIlroy said of his Sunday supergroup. “JT’s coming off winning his second major at the PGA Championship. He’s won I think 15 times on Tour. He’s done a lot in the game. Tony for the better. Like Tony’s struggled a bit last six to 12 months, but he seems to have really turned it around. He had a good finish at Colonial, had another good finish here. ”
Superstar pairings could have become more common on the PGA Tour, but not without the support of its players.
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Ironically, Sunday’s supergroup might provide FILO’s best defense to date. Under the networks’ proposed rule, the McIlroy-Thomas-Finau group would have been a dream of the past. Sam Burns – who entered Sunday tied with Thomas and ranks one more higher than the FedEx Cup rankings – would have slotted next to McIlroy and Finau. But for the Sam Burns fans out there, it would have been a chance to see their size up against world-beaters like they’ve never seen before. But in the end, McIlroy and Finau would have been in the final group alongside McIlroy and Finau. That’s Alex Smalley, World No. 176 at the time.
Golf’s biggest stars are often reminding us, success is driven by good processes, not necessarily good results. The Tour’s entertainment process. At a time when the sport as we know it is under siege, maybe that’s changing worth listening to.
Sure, it might have cost golf this weekend’s supergroup, but on the PGA Tour, one result doesn’t make you a success. At best, it makes you lucky.
